668
Opinion of the Court
and won the state championship as a high school senior. He played on the Stanford University golf team that won the 1994 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship. As a professional, Martin qualified for the NIKE TOUR in 1998 and 1999, and based on his 1999 performance, qualified for the PGA TOUR in 2000. In the 1999 season, he entered 24 events, made the cut 13 times, and had 6 top-10 finishes, coming in second twice and third once.
Martin is also an individual with a disability as defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA or Act).7 Since birth he has been afflicted with Klippel-TrenaunayWeber Syndrome, a degenerative circulatory disorder that obstructs the flow of blood from his right leg back to his heart. The disease is progressive; it causes severe pain and has atrophied his right leg. During the latter part of his college career, because of the progress of the disease, Martin could no longer walk an 18-hole golf course.8 Walking not only caused him pain, fatigue, and anxiety, but also created a significant risk of hemorrhaging, developing blood clots, and fracturing his tibia so badly that an amputation might be required. For these reasons, Stanford made written requests to the Pacific 10 Conference and the NCAA to waive for Martin their rules requiring players to walk and carry their own clubs. The requests were granted.9
7 Title 42 U. S. C. § 12102 provides, in part: "The term 'disability' means, with respect to an individual— "(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual . . . ."
8 Before then, even when Martin was in extreme pain, and was offered a cart, he declined. Tr. 564-565.
9 When asked about the other teams' reaction to Martin's use of a cart, the Stanford coach testified:
"Q. Was there any complaint ever made to you by the coaches when he was allowed a cart that that gave a competitive advantage over the—
"A. Any complaints? No sir, there were exactly—exactly the opposite. Everybody recognized Casey for the person he was, and what he was
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